Evenin'
I'm a 36 year old male who was recently referred for assessment. The result was a non-diagnosis due to failure to meet a couple of important screening criteria. I have no reason to doubt their expertise. What I do have is the following:
1) Fairly substantial social issues, sensory issues, need for routine and a load of other fairly stereotypical autistic / Aspergery-type stuff. It is often just assumed by people who get to know me that I am on the spectrum (what's amusing is the people I get along with usually are themselves). People who don't get to know me just get an endless string of jokes to keep them at arms length, but generally amenable.
2) The distinct feeling that an assessment of people who require specific questions in order to trigger memory access that relies on broad questions with no prep is likely going to result in a lot of negative responses. A perfect example is that after describing my routines, checklists and so on that I was asked about "non-functional" routines. Apparently this is an absolute requirement in the assessment criteria. My routines have purpose so I said no. Later, when I was sitting beside the hairdryer (blowing at me) as I do every day, it suddenly occurred to me "this is a non-functional routine, isn't it?" Same with things like eating food in order of category, eating peas by the multiples of 8 (ideal) or 4 (pea-fork misconfiguration). You start considering what other information might have been useful but simply wasn't prompted. Same with some other questions which I didn't have a clear answer for until the next day and were apparently important deciding factors.
3) The feeling that some judgements were made without probing. For example, he saw straight through my adapted attempts to make eye contact (staring into his forehead), however he made assumptions on the variability of my voice and use of gestures. If he'd asked, I'd have been able to show him the TV characters my vocal intonation is copied from as well as the gestures. I believe he assumed my behaviour was natural - it's rehearsed in a mirror. Over and over until it matches on-screen.
4) I have a bias as I'd really like an explanation for my social ineptitude and generalised weirdness. I'd also like to have a different perspective on it that might give me a different toolkit for addressing those problems, rather than retreading the same ground over problems I've not fixed over the last three decades.
I've tired of making an idiot of myself, so I don't particularly wish to make a stink over what is likely just my bias, awful memory and overanalysis leading me to remember, see and dwell on what would be most useful / fit into a neat little box. However, there's enough there to make me call things into question, especially the better answers to questions that have arisen. So my question is; is it worth addressing this and if so, how? I was considering waiting for the report and then possibly discussing it with my GP. I'd have thought mental health services would be used to people being generally messy and wouldn't have a problem reconsidering based on new / refined information.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
